Writing Against God: Language as Message in the Literature of Flannery O'Connor

McMullen contends that while a linguistic analysis of Flannery O'Connor's fiction reveals -- more than other critical approaches -- the depth of her talent, readers "must be explicitly coached if [their] interpretations are to match O'Connor's explications." Explores her literary style of using simple sentences, meaningful grammatical construction, and "naming techniques that obscure or minimize personal worth." Addresses her use of symbols and suggests that her inconsistent use of symbolic "hats, sunglasses, eyes, eyeglasses, colors, wood, animals, and machinery" pose problems for her readers. Discusses the negation present in O'Connor's fictional world signaled by her use of "negative words, negative verbs, anagrams, the concept of suffering, mysterious concealments, and directional metaphors," which tend to "negate the action of grace presumably available to her characters." Suggests as well, that O'Connor's "images of the Georgia landscape, familial relationships, the Christ figure, inanimate objects, death, and Christian humanism take on unexpected meanings, and on close inspection appear not to support her stated Catholic views." Outlines the "Catholic concept of a sacramental marriage, the Church's stance on birth control, and the sanctity of the family," and compares these positions to O'Connor's conflicting "private comments." McMullen completed her Ph.D. at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. Her 1991 dissertation was titled "Writing Against God: Language and Flannery O'Connor's Literature." Readers may also be interested in her article discussing the linear and circular patterns seen in O'Connor's depictions of time: "The Verbal Structure of Infinity," in Language and Literature 21 (1996): 45-64. R. Neil Scott / Middle Tennessee State University